Category Archives: web 2.0

Slideshare: Newsletter Setting Bug

While creating an account on Slideshare I stumbled upon a bug(assuming it’s not intentional).

Slideshare has tweaked its signup process for some time(we’ll talk about that some time else) and the lower half of second form(yes second) of signup looks like this.

slideshare_form 2

As you can see clearly I’ve NOT selected the newsletter option here but when after signing up I checked the email subscription settings here’s what it looked like.

slideshare newsletter setting

Exactly my point, whether you choose the newsletter option or not, you will still get the newsletter as this option is checked by default. To confirm my finding I created another test account and I ran into this bug again.

Hope it’s a bug and Slideshare will kill it soon.

PS: There’s another bug with that newsletter that I’ve quoted a few times in Twitter too. I get 2 copies/emails of newsletter everytime they send it

two emails per slideshare newsletter

While you are on it fix it too Slideshare. Thanks !!

Update: As rightly pointed out by Gaurav in a comment below I was getting two mails because I had two accounts and it’s NOT a bug. MY BAD !!

Slideshare: Follow or Add as a contact ?

Got a mail from Slideshare notifying about a new follower. Curious, I opened the email and here’s what I saw.

slideshare new follower mail

If you haven’t noticed what I mean, there are two different terms being used to represent an action i.e. Follower and Contact. While the subject reads ” lindamoodbell is now following you on Slideshare” the very first line in email reads “lindamoodbell added you as a contact on Slideshare”.

So is lindamoodbell following me on Twitter oops Slideshare or has she added me as a contact ? And if they mean the same thing why are these terms loosely used for each other?

Interestingly the email also mentions that I can too add her as contact on Slideshare(no mention about following her back)

I wrote about the changes from term contact/friend etc to follower in both Scribd and Slideshare here and mentioned how exisiting users might find these changes in terminology confusing. A look at lindamoodbell’s page on Slideshare confirms this.

slideshare profile page

Not even a single mention of word follow/follower by users. While Slideshare might want its users to follow each other, its users seem happy adding each other as just contacts.

What do you think about these changes ?

Ready, Steady and Follow ?

I was in for a little(or is it?) surprise while surfing yesterday. I stumbled upon a blogpost that mentioned new changes with Scribd and on checking the site, here’s what I found.

Act 1: Scribd

social scribd

Looks familiar ? You bet it does.

The latest changes seem straight from Twitter’s design books. From Tweeting err Scriblling box to follower/following it all traces it’s root to Twitter but that’s not it. Another there’s also a conscpicous attach button(in white) down left. Clicking which leads to

attach scribd documents
So now scribd users can scribble updates and also attach scribd documents(there’s or someone else’s) to them.

Reminds of Pownce ? It does to me.

Here’s what a scribble looks like

getting social with scribd

A user profile page with scribbles looks like this

scribd profile page

These are some of the efforts taken by team Scribd to make their platform more social and as mentioned in the blog post, there’s more to come.

Act 2: Slideshare

While uploading a case study I compiled on Slideshare yesterday I happened to notice a change in their terminology too.

new design slideshare
Follow ? Wasn’t there a different name to this till some time back ? Yes, before being followers they were contacts.

These changes are part of the new profile design change. Interestingly unlike the scribd blog post on new changes, the post at Slideshare blog doesn’t mention the change in terminology and apparently the changes aren’t mentioned anywhere else either. I couldn’t make out if there’s anything more to the ‘following/follower’ change than terminology as the functionality remains same.

So now users can follow other users from Sribd and Slideshare respectively.

At Scribd, we believe that the written word is no longer static; the next major evolution of the “print” medium will be social and readers will contribute to authors’ never-finished works that evolve over time.

As stated in the opening lines of their blog post, Scribd probably has a few things up their sleeve about the whole making ‘Scribd Social’ campaign. While having ability to post updates/scribbles and attach files should see an increase in public interaction amongst users it’s the idea of having followers and followees(for lack of a better word) in both Slideshare and Scribd that intrigues me. Friends or Contacts are NOT same as Followers and these terms shouldn’t be used loosely, especially when they have been around for some time. Also, in Slideshare’s case I particularly don’t see ANY need for this change(same goes for Scribd BTW).

Did I hear someone say in Slideshare the term follower is apt because you get to see updates of your contacts( or whatever) on your home page ?
Right, since you see small updates about activities of your connections in a feed on your home page and get to see their latest slideshows on your page, ‘Follow’ is the best way to describe your relationship. Duh !!

Going by this reason since you can see latest photographs from your connections on Flickr, why not start the  follower/following game in Flickr too ? The point in case is simple, follower/following works for Twitter because there the MAIN activity is to subscribe/follow what other people are upto, which isn’t the case with Scribd or Slideshare(or is it ?) . You might want to know what your contacts uploaded but that’s a seperate thing and a small part of the whole thing.

Going by the fact that people on any social network want to stay updated about their connections should we just have followers and following on every social site ? Also, think from the point of view of an existing user who had spent some time on a site making contacts/friends for some time and come one day he gets to know that now he doesn’t have any contacts but he’s following the same people. I certainly wouldn’t like that abstract change. Will you like it?

Would you like if you wake up one day and see that you have no friends on Facebook but people you follow and people who follow you ?

Add your mobile number for Gmail’s password recovery

If you know it already, good, but if you don’t, here’s the thing

Now you can also add your mobile number as one of the password recovery mechanisms for Gmail

gmailaccountrecovery1

So now there’s another option to retreive your Gmail password and what’s cool about this is that you don’t need to depend on your seconday email anymore  . I think this should make life a simple in case someone looses their Gmail password.

Forgot your password ? Go to password assistance page and enter your username/email. Google will sms/text you a code on your mobile which you can use to get back on track.

Here’s a test for the new work flow

Step 1:

password_assistance

Step 2:
reset_pwd

I just added my mobile number and went for the recovery option.  Contrary to what Google says, I haven’t received any sms, though I did get an email on my alternate email account. So for now we can’t say it this option is working for India but in any case the new feature/change sounds good(and safe) and I think we all should  go for it

LinkedIn and The New York Times Team up

In a recent development(or is it?), LinkedIn and The New York Times have joined hands for a tie up. I stumbled upon this while surfing NYT and a few clicks revealed how it works. Here’s the deal for you.

Linkedin members will have an option to be served customized headline feature on Business and Technology article pages of  NYTimes.com that’ll comprise five latest stories from NYT. For ex: someone working in biotechnology sector will be served latest news from that sector.

Here’s the story in a few pics

linkedin_nyttimes

via NYtimes.com

linkedin_nyt

via LinkedIn.com

Linkedin_Newyork Times

An article on NYT

linkedin_newyorktimes

on clicking “what’s this?” on the right side in

newyorktimes_linkedin

“five stories” based on my LinkedIn profile

SavitaBhabhi becomes IT Act 2008’s first BIG target

“Indian govt bans the innovative porn cartoon site savitabhabhi.com . Fuck you bureaucrats ! This ain’t China assholes !” – says a friend’s status on FB and that’s how I got to know about this latest interesting/controvertial development. A quick  Twitter search led me to this post on ContentSutra.

According to documents seen by contentSutra.com, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, has asked all Internet Service Providers to block the website in a communication dated 3 June

The Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA), a government agency under the Department of Information Technology, is the agency that is entrusted under the IT Act to block websites. N. Vijayaditya, of the CCA, confirmed the development. “There were several complaints against the site. We have taken action under the relevant sections of the IT Act and blocked the site,” he said. When asked if the agency will give a chance to the owners of the site to defend themselves, he said nobody has come forward so far with such a request. He said he could not say if the agency will pursue legal action against the operators of the website. – ContentSutra.com

The site started having accessibility issues with some ISP’s starting to ban it since 19th June and as per now it’s blocked by all major ISP’s. This would easily be one of the biggest censorship move in India and definitely a cause of worry for Indian netizens who were already apprehensive by the ammendments to the “IT Act 2008”.  While people are busy debating if it’s all right to ban the 85th most popular site in India, the guys behind it have started rallying to “Save Savita”. They’ve set up a blog at http://www.savesavita.com/ and are using it to gather support, crowdsource information( including how to access the site).  There’s an account on Twitter and on Facebook to connect with SB fans and raise their voice. It will be interesting to see what fate(or should I say Indian Govt) has in store for SavitaBhabhi and how the ammended “IT Act 2008” will affect us.

While I certainly don’t appreciate this censorship, what do you think about it ?

As mentioned at savesavita.com you can access the site using hidemyass.com

savitabbhabhi using hidemyass.com


Crowdsourced Social Gaming Summit 2009 Summary

Got to know about Social Gaming Summit 2009 from Twitter and was hooked on it immediately. The tweets didn’t come often but were pretty interesting none the less. Here’s a summary ala Twitter Style for those who missed the action in real and on Twitter.

You can also download the presentation here. Let me know how you found it

Twitter Trick Fail

Yesterday a friend of mine, whose not into Twitter at all forwarded this mail to me

— On Fri, 5/15/09, Great Offers and Discounts wrote:

From: Great Offers and Discounts
Subject: The Twitter Trick
To: xzy@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, May 15, 2009, 8:29 PM

If You Tweet, This Is For You

Yes TwitterTrick can work for you, and you’ll quickly discover that it’s easy if it’s all lined up for you,
and you have a quick action plan that s simple to follow…

But you don’t have to fear listbuilding anymore, because the new techniques, and the new social media have made it easy for us…

You don’t have to worry about listbuilding anymore!

Your list will start growing immediately, even while you sleep!

Even if…

$ You’ve never built a list before

$ You don’t know what an autoresponder is…

$ You never heard of Twitter…

$ You’ve never sold anything online before…

$ You can just barely answer your email…

And you have nothing to fear, because you are covered by my “no hard feelings” guarantee, because I just wont have any unhappy customers, if you aren’t happy with this book, in 60 days time, and you didn’t grow your list, and you gave it an honest try, I will happily refund you your money, check it out right now…

Bundled with this offer, get

$ FREE BONUS # 1 : The Twitter Automation Report – Make your Twitter Life Easier

$ FREE BONUS # 2 : Twitter Traffic Magic – How to use Twitter to Boost your Blog/Web traffic

$ FREE BONUS # 3 : The Article Marketing Blue Print

If You Tweet, This Is For You

There is a lot more to know about it. CLICK HERE

Yes, that’s how(and why) bubbles are created. Twitter Trick’s website

So what do you think about the “Twitter Trick” ?

Kwippy features in Dataquest’s India’s 25 Hot Web 2.0 Startups list

After being nominated and nicely received for Tata Nen’s Hottest Indian Startup Awards and being Featured in Economic Times, Kwippy has made it to India’s 25 Hot Web 2.0 Startups list compiled by Cyber Media group’s Dataquest magazine. Dataquest is a premier IT magazine and has been in circulation for many a years now.  Many Thanks to them for including kwippy in their list

India's 25 Hot Web 2.0 Start-Ups

India's 25 Hot Web 2.0 Start-Ups

Preserving Status Quo:
Status Quo:

This btw is one of the best descriptions that I’ve read about kwippy and hey there’s a mention of “Slideshare” there too. Also, this would be the first appearance of “yours socially” in print media 🙂

Three Cheers to Kwippy !!!

Social Media: It’s not just about tools

You know what the problem with Social Media is ? Everyone thinks they know it…

Sad but true, this is the case when it comes to social media. Almost everyone who has accounts on two or more services(especially Twitter & FriendFeed) think they all know Social Media like the back of their hand and it’s evident by the  confidence with which they tell you how they think Social Media is the coolest thing ever and that it can do wonders to your company/product without thinking twice . These are the people who will tell you your company needs a blog more than anything, ask them what’s the easiest way to get 10k followers on some microblogging site and they’ll quip “following 20k users”.

While tools are a critical ingredient of the whole Social Media cocktail they are not all that there is to it. What needs to be realized across the board is that tools are just a means to an end(relationships) and knowing how to operate a tool or two doesn’t imply anything. It’s not uncommon to assume that if blogs work for a particular product they should work for any other product too, nor is it uncommon to assume if one needs to spread word on Twitter/Kwippy they need to follow every user they can get my hands on(and put info about their product in the profile background).

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do – Edgar Degas

Anyone can use colors to paint but it take an artist to come up with something that people really admire, same is the case with Social Media, anyone can read a few blogs daily or use some tools regularly but to get what Social Media means and what to do with it, needs an extra social sense(mostly common).  A quick test to know if someone gets Social Media would be ask them about how to leverage Social Media without touching any of the commonly available tools or simply by seeing how they score on this checklist(a score of 20 should be a minimum).

Social Media >>  Twitter + Kwippy + Plurk + FriendFeed + Facebook + Myspace + (other such sites)

The best part about using Social Media  is that there’s no straight formula which one can use for various brands/products. What might work for Pepsi might not work for Coke and it shouldn’t work too for both are different products(though in same category) by different companies and have more dissimilarities than similarity. Also, another thing that I’ve realized is irrespective of the number of hours these people who apparently get social media have spent on the tools, their understanding of the tools as standalone products and their relevance in the bigger picture is pedestrian. I’d like to end this post by saying if you are thinking Social Media, think beyond tools because there’s a lot more to it then tools.